BJP hits back at Rahul over controversial posters

Angry with Rahul Gandhi for his recent ‘hugplomacy’ tweet targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) went after the Congress chief over the welcome posters put up by his party workers, some of them showing him as god.

Both chief minister Yogi Adityanath and deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya had a word of advice or two for the Congress chief. (HT)

Angry with Rahul Gandhi for his recent ‘hugplomacy’ tweet targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) went after the Congress chief over the welcome posters put up by his party workers, some of them showing him as god.

Both chief minister Yogi Adityanath and deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya had a word of advice or two for the Congress chief. While Adityanath advised Gandhi to focus on ‘development of Amethi’, Maurya said Gandhi should ‘play human, not God’.

Excited with Gandhi’s first visit to UP as Congress chief, party workers and sympathisers allegedly put up several posters, some of which showed him as Krishna and ridiculing PM Modi. The posters were quickly seized by the district administration.

The BJP mounted a counter offensive. Adityanath, who was ridiculed in a video put up by the Congress’ official twitter handle, led the charge.

The video on Congress twitter handle targeted Adityanath with the title, ‘here’s recipe for BJP star campaigner’. It showed the UP chief minister as a divisive political campaigner.

Adityanath, who had earlier entered into a twitter war with Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah a few days ago, chose to target Gandhi for lack of development of his Amethi Lok Sabha constituency.

“Rahul should focus more on the politics of development. Had the Congress focused on this, Amethi would not have languished. See the plight of Amethi that was nursed by four generations of the Nehru-Gandhi family,” he said in Gorakhpur.

On cue, the BJP government and the party both launched a synchronised attack on the Congress chief with deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya advising Gandhi against “playing God” and UP minister Shrikant Sharma described him as suffering from an ‘attention seeking disorder.”

State BJP spokesman Manish Shukla said, “Congress chief Rahul Gandhi is blaming BJP for lack of development in Amethi, but has failed to explain how in 70 years of being in power his party couldn’t do anything for the constituency that has been sending the Gandhis to the Lok Sabha. In fact, despite losing, union minister Smriti Irani has visited Amethi more than Gandhi.”